What Is Free Content Syndication, and Is It Worth It?

Since lead generation and driving traffic remain top challenges for marketers, many are looking for solutions with great returns without requiring a significant investment. Unfortunately, while free content syndication platforms might seem appealing because they require little investment, they don’t offer the return you might hope for.

Learn what free content syndication is and why investing in a quality content syndication B2B platform will bring you greater returns.

Key Takeaways:

• Free content syndication platforms don’t provide the filters and targeted strategies you need to get your content in front of the right audience
• Invest in a quality content syndication platform with usable leads rather than settling for one that offers you a large number of low-value results
• Paid content syndication platforms return your investment plus increase your sales

🤫 PS: Looking for pricing on content syndication leads? Get a price list here

What Is Free Content Syndication?

Content syndication is distributing your content on a content syndication platform to increase your reach and get in front of more of your audience. While content syndication is offered as a paid service, free options are also available.

For example, when you publish your content on a public forum or website, you can use that platform’s audience and increase the number of people that see your content. An article on your website might only reach a couple of hundred people, but an article published on a well-known platform like Medium or LinkedIn can get thousands of views.

Another way to use free content syndication is by promoting your content through an influential person in your industry. These authority figures share your content with their audience. However, this method is not likely to be entirely free as most influencer marketers request payment for promoting brand content.

Even though there are these free content syndication methods, are they the best way to share your content?

Pros of Free Content Syndication

Free content syndication has two primary benefits:

You Don’t Have To Pay for the Services

Sharing your content through public websites and forums is free. In addition, you’re reusing your content, so you don’t have to pay for content creation costs. You also don’t have to pay to distribute and promote your content because the website takes care of that part of your content marketing.

However, the benefits they offer will also be limited. Because it’s a free service, they won’t provide a complete, white-glove experience. They’ll use your content to expand their brand rather than promote yours.

You Increase Your Brand Awareness

Publishing your content on other platforms increases the number of people who see your content. Most free content syndication platforms already have a large established audience who regularly read and interact with the content they publish.

You can take advantage of that audience by sharing your content on those sites.

While you have many readers, you can’t guarantee the quality of those viewers and have no way to follow up with them. Since 56% of leads aren’t ready to buy, the increased audience won’t necessarily translate to increased sales unless you have a platform supporting lead nurturing and distribution.

Cons of Free Content Syndication

Is the money you save worth the personalized experience you lose? Consider these cons before deciding if “free” equates “better.”

You Can’t Target Your Audience

When you publish on a free website, you upload your content, and it’s blasted across platforms or on a specific free platform. You have no control over how or where it appears. That means the time you took to create the content or develop a syndication strategy is wasted as you can’t manage how you distribute it and who sees it.

Targeting your audience is essential for ensuring your ideal buyers see your content. Having 100 readers from the wrong industry won’t end in conversions. A content syndication platform that targets your audience brings your content to the readers so that you can prioritize those who are prospective buyers.

Targeted content syndication costs more than free but brings in a greater return as potential buyers will see and respond to your content.

You Have No Filter Options

In addition to losing control over where you publish the content, you also don’t have control over who sees what you post. Those in your industry and unrelated to your company have access to your content.

Filtering your content allows you to choose your audience and filter out those that aren’t quality leads. For instance, if a hobbyist and a business decision maker both interact with your content, you can filter out the hobbyist and focus on the business decision maker as they’re the ones who will use your products and services.

Another benefit of filters is that you can create content based on:

• Titles
• Industries
• Locations
• Demographics

These filters will increase the quality of the leads you generate.

You Can’t Track Your Results

If you can’t capture your reader’s information, you have no way of tracking how your content performed. In theory, content syndication on popular platforms should also increase your website traffic. However, you can’t guarantee people are reading what you posted and that your content is effective in bringing in more traffic.

The top metrics for measuring content marketing include lead generation and website traffic. Therefore, a highly effective content syndication platform would allow you to track both metrics.

Using content syndication for lead generation provides measurable results. For example, instead of guessing how well your content performed, you can see reports with numbers like how many leads filled out the lead generation to read your content.

Including lead generation in your content syndication also reduces the number of leads you lose. For example, after people read your content, you can use their information to follow up with them through lead nurturing strategies.

Lead nurturing combines content with personal communications to address customer problems, answer common questions, and promote your products.

Is Paid Content Syndication Worth the Investment?

In tech marketing, you need to focus more on the quality of your marketing strategies over the quantity of leads you can generate. Tech marketing has one of the highest marketing budgets because it requires more complex marketing strategies. Unfortunately, free content syndication can’t handle the complexities of tech marketing because of limited tracking and filtering features.

Through paid B2B content syndication vendors can use filters to target the right audience while weeding out low-value leads.

Another benefit of paid content syndication is that you don’t have to rely on your audience to find your content. Instead, you take your content to your audience to guarantee they see your message. As a result, direct content syndication increases your response rate.

Because you not only get your content in front of your target audience, you also get their information, and you can create a lead nurturing strategy. Leads are nine times more likely to act on your message if you follow up with that lead within five minutes. Without a lead generation strategy in place, you’ll lose those extra eyes you get on your content instead of having the opportunity to turn your audience into customers.

Plan Your Next Content Syndication Campaign

Instead of cutting marketing costs, maximize the return on your investment. Spending less doesn’t guarantee returns and often hurts your goals more than meets them. Start spending smarter rather than less and see measurable quality results.

Contact us to learn more about our content syndication services for lead generation.